Without commenting on the proposals themselves, in fairness these have been part of Conservative plans for some years if you look back at their policy papers. Maybe the full implications were glossed over, or just under-reported because they sounded a bit techy. Whether their Coalition partners have cottoned on to the full implications is unclear. But with a secure majority and the unions fighting bigger battles in non-ring-fenced areas of the public sector, expect to see much faster and further reaching reform than under Labour.

From: The Health Equity Network (HEN) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike hughes
Sent: 01 July 2010 09:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: GP commissioning

Interesting, and not just naive but intellectually incompetent. You can't have complete seperation of comissioning and providing AND GP commissioning. This is true a priori, it isn't a matter of judgement.

In the quasi economy of the nhs where the patient isn't the consumer but the goods, and GPs create demand as well as satisfying some of it, it remains to be seen whether unversal GP commissioning will introduce the personalisation of care that is so hard to acheive properly in a command commissioning model....

Sent from my iPhone

On 30 Jun 2010, at 09:44, alex scott-samuel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Tom Lines [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Dear all,

I spotted a little item at the bottom of p. 4 of last Friday's Financial Times (June 25th), and a longer website report called 'Family doctors to take on commissioning' at
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c0b9b0c-7fb8-11df-91b4-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=aec5dfd0-681e-11df-a52f-00144feab49a.html.

Consider this:
There will be a full separation of the commissioning of care from its provision, [health secretary] Mr Lansley [said] - creating a "regulated market" among public, private and voluntary health providers.' and this: 'Mr Lansley acknowledged ... that his plans will involve "far reaching" changes to both the form and function of the NHS - in spite of previous pledges from the health secretary and David Cameron, the prime minister, to avoid large structural upheavals.'

I'm no expert in this area, but won't this fragment and finally destroy the public basis of the NHS? If it won't, can someone please explain to me what the real implication is? It's surely more than just rearranging the bureaucratic furniture.

And if it will - and I'm also right in thinking the story has had little coverage elsewhere - can I ask you to pass it around? It looks to me like another chilling example of the Con-Dem coalition taking the Thatcher revolution several stages further, after the Tories have lied about these plans ever since David Cameron became their leader.

Best wishes,
Tom Lines